Nis Mayor Zoran Perisic and Johnson Electric Directors Loran Kardon and Michael Friedrich signed in Nis on Tuesday the contract on free cession of public construction land for the construction of the plant.

The value of the investment adds up to between EUR 15 and 20 million.

Perisic said after the agreement signing that the plant would employ around 1,000 workers and that it would start operating in June 2014.

Kardon said that Nis was chosen as the investment site because of both the city's incentives and because of the fact that Nis is a city with a university and a network of high schools, which constitutes important logistics in the company's operation.

Kardon said that the Nis company would produce engines for the Western European market and that it aims to expand globally.

The memorandum on cooperation was signed in Nis in late June and officials said that the company from Hong Kong achieved a USD 2 billion worth of turnover in 2012.

A quarter of employees in the Nis factory will be engineers and engines will primarily be aimed at automobile industry, officials said at the memorandum signing.

Representatives of the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency said that Johnson Electrics would apply for subsidies and that the assessments for such investments can be granted up to EUR 9,000 per employee.